Swine Flu and You

You may not have heard about it if you have been living in a cave but there seems to be an outbreak of swine flu recently. It’s been all over the news. The World Health Organization has declared it a pandemic in North America. All this coverage has done nothing to help the situation and everything to make people panic.

How do you know if you have the swine flu? Apparently all of the symptoms of swine flu are exactly the same as the symptoms for EVERY OTHER TYPE OF FLU! The only way to know if it is flu of the pork variety is apparently through a blood test. Guess what? Odds are if you think you have the swine flu, you don’t. It’s just the regular old flu. Which can also be deadly to the very old and the very young.

If you go to just about any pharmacy you can pick up a pregnancy test, an ovulation test or an HIV test. You can even pick up a DNA paternity test. That one is more for the Jerry Springer crowd, though. You know, for those of you who want to know the answer to the question: “Who my baby Daddy?”

I want to see a take-home flu test. This would be a simple blood test. Just stick your finger and put a couple of drops of blood on a stick. Then wait 3 minutes. The test would tell you what kind of flu you have by showing a corresponding picture.

Chicken – congratulations, you have the Bird Flu. The symptoms of Bird Flu are fever, cough, sore throat, muscle pain, vomiting and diarrhea. You may have contracted this version from another human or by kissing a bird. Shame on you. Never kiss a bird on the mouth.

Conquistador – hooray, it’s the Spanish Flu you have contracted. At least you weren’t communing unnaturally with any animals, just other humans. Symptoms include the following: fever, cough, sore throat, muscle pain, vomiting and diarrhea.

Triad Gang Symbol – you have the Hong Kong Flu. Been to the Orient lately? Once again you should be proud of yourself since this one doesn’t originate from animals. Some of the common symptoms are fever, cough, sore throat, muscle pain, vomiting and diarrhea.

Beer Bottle – you have tested positive for the Brown Bottle Flu. The only thing you are in danger of right now is alcohol poisoning. Lay off the sauce. Some of the symptoms of the BBF are sore throat, vomiting and diarrhea.

Randall Flagg – uh-oh. You’ve got Captain Trips otherwise known as the SuperFlu. It doesn’t matter what the symptoms are. Unless you are part of the lucky 0.6% of the world population who happen to have a natural immunity to it your ass is grass. Blame the government. It’s their fault Project Blue got out of control.

Bacon – watch out ’cause you have the Swine Flu! You should have had a hamburger at that barbecue instead of the pork chop. Either that or you should not have stopped by that hog farm for a midnight rendezvous. The symptoms of Swine Flu are fever, cough, sore throat, muscle pain, vomiting and diarrhea.

Are you sensing a recurring theme here? Apparently the Swine Flu shares the same symptoms as the rest of the flu varieties. In my humble opinion (you know, because of all my extensive medical training) this whole Swine Flu pandemic has been blown out of proportion by the media. They haven’t had any other tragedies crop up lately so they locked in on this one.

I wouldn’t worry until the WHO raises their threat level higher than 6. My wife tried to tell me the WHO threat scale only goes up to 6. I’m pretty sure that’s as high as they want the public to know they can go. If things get bad enough you’ll see that thing shoot all the way to 11.

Take your vitamins. Wash your hands. You’re probably going to be just fine.